Breath Of Life
by liveandlove1989
Summary: "She is the sort of beautiful he hasn't seen in a really, really long time. Sharp, soft, somehow both all at once. He wonders without question how something so good could find a place this bad. How she could find someone like him." TW for language
1. Chapter 1

"I don't fucking want your booze," Ryouko snarls, slapping the small flask away with a flurry of her hand.

Mordecai reels back slightly, though his grip on the metal remains strong and he effortlessly brings it back to himself. He blinks, looks at it. Looks back up at the woman before him and frowns. He watches as she hunches into herself; the faraway look in her eyes as she gazes out over the never-ending dust and desert is enough to tug at something deep within him.

"It'll help," he murmurs, the grate to his voice making the words slur as quiet as they are. She looks at him like she doesn't understand – maybe she doesn't – but only shakes her head in response.

The quiet envelopes them, then. A steady growl somewhere way off in the distance tells of wandering, roaming skags and a gentle breeze that is anything but when it picks up and the sand starts. It blows up and over them and Mordecai ducks his head down slightly, angled just so that the scratch to the air doesn't sting his cheeks. He'd removed his cowl some time before, regrets it a bit now as he has to squint to look up into the colored sky. He silently wonders what Bloodwing might be up to.

Ryouko speaks, then, in a voice that isn't quite her own. "Pandora fucking sucks. Why are we even here?" She doesn't look to him even as Mordecai shifts forward to lean on the railing and cross his arms.

"Looking for something. Doesn't matter how hard it is to get it."

She snorts. Reaches a hand up to brush back black locks that have come loose from her constant ponytail. He watches with an almost endearing fascination as her eyes flutter shut and her lashes leave the ghosts of shadows over pale cheeks. She is the sort of beautiful he hasn't seen in a really, really long time. Sharp, soft, somehow both all at once. He wonders without question how something so good could find a place this bad. How she could find someone like him.

When she opens her eyes again and looks to him, at him, there is a vulnerability there that aches in its gentility. There is a sort of watery trust, too, and he doesn't believe he fully deserves it. Her voice breaks lightly as she asks, "Why couldn't he love me?"

Mordecai doesn't have an answer for that. Doesn't think he ever will, honestly. Roland is the type of man that comes and goes, duty before self. But that isn't what Ryouko needs to hear, and it sure as Hell isn't what he wants to say. Instead he finds himself shrugging noncommittally and unconsciously leaning in until his shoulder brushes along hers in a manner he can't tell to be soothing or not. For her sake, he hopes it is. "You don't need him. Out here, it's better this way. Easier to move. Easier to look. Once the Vault is found, he won't matter. You'll see."

Ryouko sniffles. Wipes her nose on the back of her glove and stands a tad bit taller, straighter. Something like a smile, small and far too hesitant, washes over her features. She looks at him with eyes the color of sand. "Yeah. You're right." He watches as her perfect teeth clamp down on a full bottom lip; the sharp, guilty wonder of what those lips might taste like passes through him. "You still offering that drink?"

Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be able to say it. He can't find a single cell in his body that might refuse her.

His fingers twitch around the flask. He needs to shoot something, desperately. But instead, he simply holds out the alcohol and gives her the best smirk he thinks himself capable of offering. It is more a grimace than anything, but she knows it is given with the best of intentions. "That's just the start," he grounds out. Something like electricity, but somehow also more alarming, jolts to life along his arm when her fingertips touch his.

"Guess we better get this party going, then," she mutters, and he watches in wonder as a muscle he can't name moves beneath the skin of her throat as she tips back her head and swallows a mouthful of bitterness. It's not good. Then again, it's never good. And in silence he wonders what it would feel like – if that muscle would move the same way beneath his teeth.

When she hands back the flask, he takes it. And as the breeze picks up and ruffles his hair he tips his own head back and lets his lips and tongue and heart trace the path hers had just touched. He tries to picture what it must be like to kiss something so good; then the burning along his throat shuts down that thought, replaced with the need for more. A thought like that one would get him nowhere, not now. What he needed was the distraction that intoxication would – had always – offered.

They both need it, he realizes, as that faraway look steadily creeps back onto her features and she looks back out. She's hurting in a way that he knows too well, and his jaw tightens with the urge to reach out and comfort her. He wishes he knew something other than silent hate. He wishes he could offer more than a few hours of possible regret. The alcohol that hasn't even entered his system yet makes his stomach hurt.

"Come," he commands, in a tone that isn't quite steady and isn't quite shaky. Ryouko looks to him without comment, and he knows without looking back that she is following as he leads them into the building. They travel up a stairway and down to the second door – the only room with a door in this dusty, dingy, rundown shack of a building. Mordecai likes it here because no one else likes it here. He closes the door behind her and she immediately goes for the glassless window, his own feet carrying him over to the far corner; he feels with gloveless hands along the aged wood until it gives and he can pop open a board to loot his private stash. Old bottles with names he can't pronounce that taste like stale piss but completely wash away feelings.

He steps up to her side, rests his back against the wall and slides down until he's sitting with his legs sprawled out before him. A pocket knife he stole from some bandit ages ago comes out of his pocket to unscrew the cork as Ryouko finds a place next to him. She is close enough that he can feel the warmth of her skin without touching. Close enough that he can want something he knows he can't have.

She accepts the bottle he offers, bringing it up and drinking from it heavily. Her nose and brows furrow and she comes away sputtering but only raises a hand to keep him at bay when Mordecai instinctively reaches to help her. Dark eyes meet his, and she smirks in this way that is all naivety and all playful. He wishes he knew what that felt like; it had been longer than he cared to admit since he felt anything, really, aside from a nagging sense of hopelessness.

Pandora was less about a better life and more about forgetting the past.

He's not completely sure how long they sit there, in silence; long enough to get through three fourths of the bottle and lose a considerable amount of daylight. It is only when yellow has turned orange and he feels the beginnings of a headache that he takes back the bottle and sets it aside. Ryouko seems less ready to end their session as she grumbles something unintelligible and attempts to reach around him for the drink.

She stumbles, ends up sprawled in his lap and just sort of lies there, tired or disoriented or maybe both. He prays to a God he hasn't believed in since childhood that she can't feel the excitement this stirs to life in him. His hands are more unsteady than he is prepared to admit as they hesitate over her side, eyes darting down unintentionally to take in the skin that has been exposed by her rising gown. Pale and unblemished, kissed by the last of the sun's light as it slipped through the window.

He has to swallow and divert his sights to keep his hands to himself, simply letting them fall lifelessly to his side. How easy it would be, he thinks, to go further than he deserves. Further than she can handle. Further than their friendship, however fucked it has always been, can recover from.

"Hey, Mordecai?" Her voice is a whisper into the dusty air, her breath hot even through the material of his trousers. The urge to shift or move is sharp, but he ignores it.

"Yes?" And his teeth draw the taste of copper from the inside of his cheek. His body is fighting against him even now; his vocals had made the word sound more a plea than a response.

Ryouko moves on her own, pushes herself up using his thighs and falls back into place beside him. Her head lulls so she is looking at him, or maybe through him – he can't really tell when her eyes are glass. "You were right."

Mordecai can't think straight enough right now to know what she's referring to, though he doesn't question. He simply nods and hums something to keep from speaking. And that's all it takes.

For a moment, he's not completely sure what's happening. But her face is so close that it blurs and there's something shockingly soft pressed against his mouth. Warm, giving, offering. The sharp breath he inhales smells like her, like nature – dirt and sweat and something sweet that is more intoxicating than the alcohol making a home in his veins. He's not sure if it's her or himself that whimpers in this way that is all need and all pathetic.

She is the first to pull away, lips parting as she sucks in a breath; he finds that it is his lungs that burn, however. And it is her hands that shake as they rise to touch the roughness of his jaw, fingers combing through his beard in a manner that would be gentle if she could control how they tugged.

There is so much he wants to say in that moment, and so much more that needs to be said, but instead he finds his voice lost somewhere between never and forever. And her lips taste like forgiveness as they smash back against his. It is all hot and heavy and she is suddenly in his lap and his hands are grasping, clutching at the realness, the softness of her being beneath the hem of her dress. Her own touch falls to his throat, dips lower than his jacket and brushes against the sharpness of his collarbones. He groans, lets his mouth fall down to her jaw, her neck, the pulse point between shoulder and throat. He bites without thought, her life beneath his teeth, listening to this sound that is beautiful in its purity as it slips from her lips.

He's not sure how it happens. The next few seconds are a blur, but he knows with a rushing sense of clarity that she is beneath him. Her nails dig into his back even through his clothing as he thrusts without restraint, a burning in his gut that is mirrored by the tightness in his pants. She moans aloud, undeterred when his hands fumble with the straps of her gown. He doesn't want to tear it – that thought comes through – because she looks so beautiful with it on. But he knows she would look just as beautiful, maybe more so, without it. And that is what wins out, that need to see. To feel. To know.

When the article falls down she is already struggling with his zipper but he barely registers it. What instead holds his attention is the sinking realization that in place of a bra she is sporting a breast wrap. The material is tight and constricting, would take far longer than he knows they both have to strip her of. She is whispering against his skin, something he can't hear as he forfeits the fight and simply hitches up her dress. It pools at her stomach, he feels the pressure against himself lessen when her hands free him.

A low, throaty groan escapes him as her hand wraps securely around his girth, pumping once, twice. He minutely forgets what breathing even is. But then she says something that he thinks he does understand, something similar to please, and he can't get to her fast enough.

Her shorts slip down her legs, nothing left between his eyes and her. She is perfection, wild, kinky black welcoming him to the paradise between her thighs. He wishes he could savor it. Wishes he could taste it. But her hands are once more on his back and she is tugging him down and he needs her. Needs her like he needs air. She is the only thing keeping him grounded any longer.

Mordecai lines himself up with her; she is wet and scolding and he can't imagine any instance where that would ever be unpleasant. She whimpers and he thrusts and nothing and everything is okay.

He slides in easily, her body accepting him like a missing piece. He fits, he feels it, and it makes him choke on what he can only explain as pleasure. She takes all of him, voice high and breathy as she gasps; he is quiet in comparison, eyes tightly screwed shut to simply take in this feeling. They are one, he knows, as he bottoms out, hips against hips and her nails digging through his clothes and into his skin. Her stomach twitches when he lowers himself to her, he can feel it and finds that it is just as wonderful as everything else in this moment.

He breaths a moment, lets her grow accustomed. It is her that finally whines out her need, and he is too eager to do what she asks. He pulls himself back, almost out, and then plunges again. They cry out in sync; she is burning, her muscles pulling him in deeper, refusing to let him go. He is already teetering on the edge and doesn't know how much more he can take.

"Please," she whines, voice rough and rushed. He can't deny her any more than he can deny himself.

He thrusts harder, hips smacking into her with a sound that is both vulgar and wet and wonderful. She clings to him and he rests his weight on one arm, hovering over her as she sprawls out beneath him, feet hooked around his lower back to keep him close. Not that he needs the incentive. He would rather die than deprive himself of this feeling.

His other hand snakes down her body. He gropes at a clothed breast and makes a low noise at the back of his throat when Ryouko tips back her head to moan her approval. His fingertips dance along the heat of her stomach, trace the jut of her hipbones as they tease him with their gyrating motion. Down, further. He finds damp curls to tug at gently as he thrusts again. Something she went to say chokes and loses itself in her next sharp inhale.

It is when he slips further and finds her hot and ready and pulsing that they both groan and she jerks her hips and they both nearly break. He presses against her, into her, finds purchase along her throat with his mouth and bites. She is reeling beneath him, the cold floor and his burning warmth so contradictory it has her head spinning. He tastes the sweat along her skin and brings his forefinger and thumb together to pinch.

She screams.

He feels it when she loses herself; her back arches and she takes everything he has to offer and her nails dig crescents into the back of his neck as she reaches for something, anything, to keep her grounded. Her eyes slam shut and she looks off, away, mouth open and everything tight and a name that isn't his own slipping free from her tongue.

He doesn't mind. Or maybe he tells himself he doesn't mind because he doesn't know what else he would do when he is this close and she is still here and his and –

But it hits him. Even as he continues on and they ride this out together he realizes something bitter and wrong about what should be a perfect moment for them both. It isn't okay. Because as much as he loves her – dear God, does he love her, he realizes – she will never be his.

He cries as he comes, and she doesn't realize. Because for the rest of the night, she won't meet his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

It's the light that wakes her up, the heat of it on her face. Ryouko stirs and grumbles and shifts her hips; she can't stop the wince that comes when the divot between her thighs aches in a way she knows too well. Her skin is slick with something she doesn't want to name as she cracks an eye open. It takes several long, drawn out seconds before she grows accustomed to the dawn. The air is hot and sticky and smells like a mixture of unpleasant things. The taste along her tongue when she attempts to swallow is bitter in the worst of ways.

And… there is a pressure against her back that she wishes she didn't know the origins of. Her squinted eyes travel down, find a hand loosely fisting the balled up fabric of her gown. Something in the bottom of her stomach rises to the back of her throat and the very real possibility of being sick hits her, harder than she can fight against.

With a twisting motion she frees herself from Mordecai's hold, pulling herself up and onto unsteady knees. Her thighs slick together and she grimaces but crawls towards the open window, blindly tugging the straps of her dress back up as she goes. She hears him moving behind her – awoken by her – but can't look back. For more reasons than the inevitable vomit that is attacking her esophagus.

She finds the open window just in time, throws herself halfway out of it as what little remains in her stomach – cheap booze and acid – find life past her lips. It burns and tastes of a hopelessness she knows too well. Her entire body convulses as she spits out the too obvious reminder of a night she wishes she could take back.

When it is over, finally, and she can push herself back into the room with arms shakier than the breath she inhales, he is waiting. She turns in time to meet Mordecai's gaze, in time to lose her nerve, in time for whatever she had been planning to say to die along her tongue. It would be too easy a thing to chalk her sudden weakness up as a byproduct of the queasy restlessness of her being.

Neither of them speaks. He watches her with something akin to wonder, and in his nakedness she finds he is almost beautiful. All bone and sinew and leanness. Nothing and everything like the man she imaged him to be in the dark. She wonders –for no more than the span of a single second – if she could allow herself to touch him, the real him, without fear of breaking. But that would be too simple in a world that only knows trial.

Ryouko looks away. Her bare feet hurt against the wooden floor and she has to shift to dull the ache. It does nothing for the pain at the back of her eyes, though; nor, she grimaces over, does it make the room less claustrophobic. She doesn't know what to say to end the silent torture seeping into the pores along her skin.

Mordecai doesn't speak, either, though. And in the quiet they find a mutual sort of understanding. What happened can't happen again. Because it isn't him she wants, not really, and it isn't her he deserves. The reality of it all weighs on them until she finally falters under her own agony. She is the first to move.

He doesn't speak as she crosses the room. She doesn't apologize as she rips open the door and slips out.

A slamming door has never sounded so damning.

* * *

A sharp wave of pain washes through her shoulder, down her arm, and she throws herself into the nearest open doorway. Their endless cackling claws like a rabid animal at the back of her conscious, threatening to drive her insane; she breathes deeply through her nose, the sound echoing in her mask as she reaches up. Her fingers come away from her skin slick and hot with crimson.

A curse leaves her lips. The grip she has on her SMG tightens to the point her knuckles threaten to pop. She twists from her cover just as something whizzes by her face – she isn't sure what it is but is came from the same direction she's going, so fuck everything and to hell with any sense of caution.

The backlash from her gun makes her hands tingle as she takes down the psycho charging her. Another bandit pops up from a makeshift wall of rubble and she fires without aim. Somehow it hits its mark, though, and he falls just as quickly as his brethren.

Ryouko slams to the ground, a plume of dust rising as she scurries behind an overturned barrel. Her shoulder throbs and the warmth has turned into a sticky coldness that now inches down her arm. It doesn't matter, not really. There have been worse injuries, and even the ache is dulled by her mind.

 _He tastes familiar in the best and worst of ways; the scratch of his beard is new but enveloping, making her groan as she brushes her face against it._

No. No, she pushes that from her mind because it isn't what she needs in the slightest. Fire scorches the ground inches from her makeshift cover and she yelps a curse, grinding her teeth together and shaking the fog of memory from her mind. She needs to focus. Or she needs to think about what she is going to do after this; she didn't exactly have a fool proof plan when she picked up a handful of bandit involved missions at the bounty board just shy of Fyrestone.

She blinks and draws in another breath and jumps into action, taking down another bandit that dares to break rank and come at her. After that, though, Ryouko finds herself slipping back down with a groan. Something burns anew along the outside of her thigh - when she dares look down she finds it is a gash, shallow but long, beading. Perhaps a thrown knife or something more grazing her.

 _Where he touches, fire ignites along her skin. She is alight with desire, feels lust making its way through the path of her veins. But it isn't the face she associates with this feeling that comes into view. No, it is him, and for a reason she can't explain, that's okay. Because he is perfect. He feels **right**. He makes her feel **alive**._

For fuck's sake, no! She jerks her head to the side so quickly that something pops and now it hurts and fuck. Why? Why is it Mordecai she keeps feeling, and why now? A psycho comes at her from the side and she fires off another round, watches as the body goes sprawling into the sand at an unnatural angle. Red oozes like water from his wounds.

And then it is quiet. The dirt settles and the sun is blazing overhead and Ryouko lets her head lull back loosely as she fully slumps against the barrel. Her breath is hard in her mask and there's a lump in her throat she can only blame one person on.

Fuck Mordecai.

And fuck her, too. There's no excuse for what this is. There's no excuse to love a man she doesn't even deserve.

* * *

He has never felt this empty.

His fist connects with the meaty side of a man twice his size, and even when Roland winces he flat out growls. He is pretty sure that just hurt him more than it did the soldier.

But even so, Mordecai cannot find it in himself to forfeit this fight, or attack, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. Roland still looks confused as he swings a fist and Mordecai almost effortlessly sidesteps it, gliding out of his range. It only seems to surprise the soldier more, though the only proof of that is in his eyes. His face is a stone hard collection of graceless caution. He is less afraid of Mordecai getting a decent hit in than he is of hurting this man for a reason he still has yet to hear.

"What is this?" he tries for the third time in less than five minutes, and once more the sniper's only response is to bounce away from a wayward hit and come back with fists, only to duck away again with a grimace and clenched jaw.

Roland turns as Mordecai turns, blocks and attacks in session. It is like a ballet between the two, neither giving in but Roland holding back where Mordecai does not. And that's what he can't understand. He hasn't done a thing - to his knowledge - to wrong the man. He hasn't even seen him in nearly two months. So for him to show up, seething with quiet fury and ready to fight without explanation... It is beyond the soldier.

Another fist contacting the softness of his side. He grunts and steps back, furrowing his brows and straightening his spine. "Enough!" he speaks, and it is as clear as the sky and almost as endless in its existence. But if the sniper hears him - Roland is unsure he even can hear him, as caught up in his own anger as he seems to be - he doesn't so much as flinch.

Instead he bears his teeth, and for the first time this entire time, he speaks. "You rat fucking bastard." His boots dig into the sand, kick up loose dirt. His eyes are hidden behind the goggles he normally adorns, but Roland can feel them branding him as such. "She fucking loves you. But you don't even deserve her, you mangy ass."

The soldier blinks. His brow loosens and something clicks in his eyes and-

A fist to his jaw. It barely turns his head but is sudden enough that it has him taking a step back as he huffs. Mordecai stands before him, smaller in stature but bigger in conviction. They lock eyes, he is sure of that, and his frown turns into something more sour.

"That's none of your business." Even though he doesn't mean the bitterness of his words, he makes no notion to take them back.

"Not my business?!" Mordecai's stance is almost crazed in its wake, voice that of someone on the verge of a break down. Roland can see the tension in his body as it rolls from muscle to muscle, locking him in a fit of unheaded inner conflict. "She isn't some fucking toy for you to play with! She's a girl, for fuck's sake!"

And something even more obvious clicks in the darker man's eyes. His face almost softens with the sudden realization of the situation, and if he knew the protocol for this sort of thing he would have answered with something other than a punch to the jaw.

Mordecai goes sprawling, sending up a dust cloud as he falls on his face, the world spinning with the intensity of it all. The sky is open and everlasting as he blinks away the haze and finds himself facing it. The breath in his lungs feels like dead weight.

And then there's a shadow over him, and he blinks and looks and finds dark eyes studying him. Roland doesn't look angry, or confused anymore. He simply looks uneasy. When he speaks, it's in a voice the sniper can't recall ever hearing the man use. "You're right. I never did deserve her, man. I don't think anyone ever will. But if she'll have you, don't do what I did. Don't fuck it up."

Mordecai lays there in stunned silence as the soldier reaches down, takes back up his rifle, and walks away.

* * *

The kickback to his rifle brings a ringing thrum to his shoulder, making the muscles along his neck tense as he peers through the scope. Another shot sends skags scattering; he watches them run and shares in their fear. But then he is taking them down, one after the other, and knows only tense impatience. The balcony beneath him groans as he reloads and resets and begins again.

Bandits next, their small outcropping is almost hidden from here but he can still see it, which means he can still end their miserable existence before they even know what's happening.

One for the anger that is eating him alive, for the rage he still holds; it is against himself, though, instead of another. One for the fear that chips away at his sanity, for the terror of confessing what he feels and losing the one good thing left in his life; she is what makes the days on this rock worth living.

He loses count. He loses time.

It is only when a hand finds purchase along his forearm that he looks up, though even that is delayed; should it have been an enemy, he would have welcomed the sweetness that dying might bring.

But it is her. Ryouko. Like a mirage brought to life by his endless belief. He takes in the sight of her, dress and mask and blood and gun, and his grip on the rifle wanes. His fingers ache with the remembrance of what it felt like to run through her hair, cool and soft.

Her name lodges in the back of his throat and he chokes on the word. "Ryouko..." Her fingers leave him, and he nearly jerks her way in search of more.

He watches as she reholsters the SMG at her hip, how her hands travel up and she slips the mask from her face. Her cheeks are flushed with color, skin shimmering in the fading light with sweat. Crimson traces a path down her cheek, just shy of damp tendrils of hair.

She is the most beautiful thing on Pandora, of this he is certain.

Mordecai swallows down emotion and leans to set his rifle against the banister without ever breaking her gaze. His own hands come back up and he removes his cowl with practiced ease. He is sure he looks a mess - swollen jaw and red rimmed eyes and splotchy skin from both alcohol and the sun - but if she sees any of these things as imperfections, she has a funny way of showing it. Her pale lips curve up in what he can only describe in that moment as a smile.

It is her turn to flounder on his name. "Mordecai..." And whatever else she has to say becomes lost in the breath between them and the span of time.

He moves without moving. She follows his lead. They meet somewhere in the middle and she moulds into him like they fit. But they don't, not really; he thinks this is a good thing. He's seen what fitting together gets you.

Roland and Ryouko fit. Like puzzle pieces, they slid against one another until their edges frayed and there was nothing left that resembled what they once had. By not fitting, Mordecai knew they _did_ fit.

He breathes her in. Wraps her in an embrace as tight as he can possibly give and tries to convey all that he feels in this one instance to her.

A person had never felt so much like home.


End file.
